Force Crux
by Winged Lady Colette
Summary: A warning from a Force Sensitive race may be the thing they need for everything to change. The choice of love will decide if the Chosen One stays on the Light side or joins the Dark side of the Force.


**Author's Note: Yes, another story. I'm sorry! I am really into Star Wars right now! I am open to any pairing, straight or gay! Please let me know what you think! Enjoy!**

 **Warnings: OOCness, un-beta'd.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

 **Word Count: 3,883**

"Lady Melethani," a handmaiden calls out softly, stepping closer to the unmoving figure sitting alone in one of the transport carts. It was a nightmare trying to get an entire open cart on the busy transports going from place to place on the busy super metropolis of Coruscant. The planet wide city was bustling with life at all times of the day. It was both beautiful and rich in practically all definitions. It could do without the pollution and the noise. It wasn't like the planet that they came from. Their homeworld was quiet and surrounded in forestry. This place was industrial and alive in an entirely different way than their own.

"My lady?" The handmaiden calls out again, taking another step closer.

The beautiful woman with thick, elegant, pin straight white hair as pure as snow, going all the way down her back to her waist. It's slicked back out of her face completely, giving her a regal look. Interwoven elegantly into the snow white strands was beads and other small items that clink and clack when she moves or the wind blows through them. Her skin is so pale it's almost translucent. In the right light, one could see the dark blue veins under the skin on her arms, neck and shoulders. Her face is thin and humanoid without any sort of mar to damage her beauty. Her skin looks soft and smooth and her eyes are half lidded with long dark lashes and the purest white blue eyes. She has no pupils or coloration to her cheeks and lips. Her ears are long and pointed, enhancing her beauty more with large earrings dangling from them.

Her gown is long and elegant, a dark splash of navy blue that makes her skin stand out. It's long, to the floor, with an even longer train to follow, with large, silky sleeves that were attached on the underside of her arms but left her arms bare save for straps on her shoulders. She's tall, probably almost five foot eleven and thin as a stick. She's dainty and elegant and stands out.

Her back is ramrod straight as she sits on the bench with her head turned slightly to gaze out the window, feeling the sun beat down on her as mid noon rolls around, keeping the city fired up and moving.

"Rayomi," the woman says, her voice soft and kind, the air around her shimmering a bit. The handmaiden straightens up a bit, eyes wide.

"Yes, my lady?" The handmaiden asks, after a full minute of the woman not continuing.

"I cannot wait for our meeting," she says softly, turning her face toward the handmaiden, showing off her small, but elegant twin horns that are neatly decorated by bedazzled gold and silver chains that dangle around her face. "I must go and speak with the Jedi Council now."

"I understand, my lady," the young handmaiden says softly, reaching up to tuck a strand of snow white hair behind her ear. "I will... let the guards know, but-"

"-Rayomi," the elegant woman says softly, offering a tiny smile. "I know formalities, but I must go. It cannot wait."

The handmaiden, very young, barely an adult, nods her head quickly, wringing her hands in front of her nervously. "Yes, my lady. I will let the guards know of your decision. Miss Yonzume, too."

Melethani reaches her thin, dainty hand out toward Rayomi, the younger girl scrambling close and bending down onto one knee so that she may rest her hand on the young girl's cheek. She turns light, unseeing eyes down to the dark green eyes of the girl knelt before her.

"Rayomi, I know this is your first time leaving home, but it's going to be okay. You just have to calm your nerves. Let the Force flow through you and pull away your fears and uncertainties," she says softly. The young handmaiden nods quickly, bowing her head submissively. She takes a few, deep breaths to calm herself down before her nerves finally begin to settle. She bows her head a bit lower.

"Thank you for your guidance, my lady."

Melethani turns her face back toward the sunlight. She closes her unseeing eyes and just feels the heat on her cheek, shoulders and chest. Her dainty hands are pressed neatly onto her lap. She lets out a few short breaths, trying to block out the large expanse of noise, life and energy that comes with being in such a densely populated place. The Force is vibrating with all of the life here on Coruscant. It has been many years since Melathani has left their home planet to come to a different world to meet with her long time friend.

"My lady," a tall figure, dressed in a long dark cloak with dark armor visible underneath it, steps up next to the handmaiden, easily eclipsing over her.

"Rolith," Melethani says softly, opening her eyes in response to his voice.

"I heard that you wish to speak with the Jedi Council now rather than in three days time," the man says, pulling the hood down to reveal a young, handsome face of a man with very similar looks to the two ladies. He has short, snow white hair pushed back out of his face that almost reaches his shoulders. His own small horns are left undecorated like the ladies. His skin is just as pale and translucent while his ears are a bit larger, and his eyes are a similar green to Rayomi's.

"Yes, it is true," Melethani says. "I need to speak with the Jedi today. I simply cannot wait any longer."

Rolith's dark eyebrows pull together, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth pulling down. "Is something wrong, my lady?" Melethani smiles, feeling Rayomi reaching out to her through the Force, his thoughts like a gentle caress of her soul.

Melethani smiles, reaching her hand out toward him. A split second of hesitation and the tall men bends knee next to Rayomi, who was still knelt in front of the dainty woman. She lightly presses her hand to his cheek, softly rubbing her thumb against his prominent cheek bone affectionately. With her other hand, she reaches out to touch Rayomi's face as well.

"Settle yourselves," she says softly, lowering her eyes to be half lidded. "I can feel your anxieties spiking significantly. We are all fine, I promise."

"Yes, my lady," Rolith and Rayomi both close their eyes. For a moment, the three of them just settle into the silence in the tram, but not of the world around them, for those like the three of them who were very sensitive to the Force, it's hard to focus on one another on a planet so loud. After a few seconds of concentration, they are finally able to focus in on one another.

The tram clamors as they begin to slow down at the next station. It pulls the three of them from their bonding. Rayomi and Rolith both move to their feet, Rolith moving to the only door leading into the tram, so that he can be the first to see what's going on outside and make sure that no one is able to get past him without him knowing. Rayomi reaches out and takes Melethani's hands and helps pull her up into a standing position. Once she's standing, Rayomi grabs onto her train and lifts it up, careful to follow after the older woman.

"We must go and speak with the Jedi Council," Melethani says softly, smiling faintly when Rolith turns his head toward her, looking like he wants to argue with her once more, but then decides against it, nodding his head. Melethani smiles a bit more.

"Are you sure that this is going to be okay, Lady Melethani?" Rayomi asks, green eyes wide as they exit the tram to meet with the rest of their guard and handmaidens waiting for them. "Interrupting the schedule by going to see them sooner?"

Melethani nods. "It will be alright. My friend is on the Council."

* * *

Melethani doesn't seem to see the young woman trying to stop her from entering the council room. She doesn't actually see her, but she does through the Force. She just ignores the girl trying to stop her. The door slides open revealing the council room, all of the seats occupied by their respective master, turning to look at the person interrupting their debate.

"Masters," the girl says, cutting between them and bowing her head as the rest of Melethani's entourage piles into the room after her, "I am terribly sorry. I tried to stop her but she insisted on seeing you now. Shall I get some of the Knights?" She glances over at Melethani mistrustfully.

"Who are you?" Mace Windu asks, narrowing his dark eyes slightly.

"No need," Yoda says, pushing off of the seat and makes his way over to the tall, elegant figure now standing in the middle of the room. "Old friend, she is."

Melethani lowers to her knees in front of Yoda, a delicate smile gracing her beautiful face. She opens her arms up wide and Yoda steps into them, hugging her tightly as her long, thin arms wrap around him. There is a moment of silence as the Force flows strongly thought the room, vibrating and cooing, making everyone look around with wide eyes. There is deep affection and familiarity that vibrates through the Force in such a way that it could almost be mistaken as their own. All in the room are able to feel the deep connection between the strange woman and the Grand Master of the Jedi.

The Force, like a starburst of colors and emotions, immediately settles as they pull apart from one another, leaving all in the room dazed at how strange a situation they just walked into.

Melethani lightly caresses his face. "My friend, it has been too long."

Yoda hums, seemingly pleased. "Melethani, well, are you?"

She finally pulls her hands back and rests them on her thighs, able to stare into Yoda's eyes easily from this angle. "I am as well as I can be. I know that our meeting is in a few days, but on my way here I had another vision that I know simply cannot wait. I am sorry, my friend if I am interrupting something important."

Yoda shakes his head slowly, stepping back and positioning his can between them once more so that he can lean against it easily. "Interrupting, you are not. Hm? A vision here, you say?"

"Master Yoda?" Plo Koon asks, relaxing back into his seat from where he had leaned forward when the strange lady had walked in. "Who is our guest? A friend of yours?"

Yoda nods and slowly makes his way back over to his chair.

Melethani stands up slowly, Rayomi stepping forward from the corner of the room to help her, before returning to the corner again with her head bowed next to four other handmaidens and seven guards.

"Greetings Masters of the Jedi Council," Melethani says softly, closing her unseeing eyes and neatly folding her hands in front of her. "My name is Melethani and I have come from a planet that you have never heard of and from a quadrant you've never been to." The Masters slowly exchange looks at the peculiar greeting. "There is no way for me to be able to say my planet name in galactic basic, so I will simply refer to it as Home."

Mace Windu nods slowly, glancing over at Yoda curiously for a moment, before returning his gaze to the soft spoken woman in font of them. "Very well, and what is the nature of this meeting, Lady Melethani?"

"Before I get to that, I must explain a bit about myself and my people. As I'm sure you can tell, Masters, I am very powerful in the Force," she says simply, without pride it is a simple fact to her. "To my people I am like a priestess. I advice my people on our future and act as the leader of Home when dealing with people on the outside. My people have long since held a strong connection to the Force. Those like myself are able to have powerful visions of the future that we have since offered to the Republic and the Council in times of relevance."

"Is it safe to assume that Master Yoda is your contact?" Depa Billaba asks, brown eyes flickering between the eldest of the Masters and the self proclaimed Priestess of a strange people.

"Correct, you are, Depa," Yoda says, interlacing three fingered hands together on his lap. "Old friend of mine, Melethani is. Contact in a far away quadrant, she is."

"Then if that is true, there must be a reason that you have come all the way here to speak with us, instead of communicating with Master Yoda as it is safe to assume you have been all these years," Ki-Adi-Mundi says, deliberately keeping his words vague based on how little that they know.

"You are correct in assuming that," Melethani says simply. "I have felt something dark brewing in this part of the galaxy for the better part of ten years. I have been focusing on this sector so intensely, I feared that perhaps I was looking too closely and had to divert my attention a bit so that it may come through a bit more clearly. When I did, I finally received my answer. It's not something that could have waited for our regular meet ups," Melethani says, looking over at Yoda, even though her eyes can not see him.

"Alright, it is, Melethani," Yoda says, before giving a small gesture around the room. "Have all of our attention now, you do."

"As I know you are aware, there has been a sith killed within the last decade," Melethani says simply. At the silence of the Council, she continues, "I have come to inform you that it was the apprentice that was killed, not the master."

"How can you be so sure?" Plo Koon asks, sitting up in his seat a bit.

"Because I had a vision of the Master..." she hesitates for a split second, before sighing. "A few days ago, I had a vision of the Dark Lord killing one of your own."

All the heat in the room is sucked out and dead silence remains. Melethani's guards shift a bit behind her, uneasy with the strain on the Force her words brought to it, not liking how no one responded right away.

"I am sorry, my old friend," Melethani says softly, locking eyes with Yoda, making all of the Jedi Masters in the room, tense up at her words. Yoda frowns a bit, staring back at her, ever amazed that she is able to find his eyes when hers are basically useless to her.

"It is not me, the master kills, is it?" Yoda asks, feeling her sadness for him through the Force.

"No," Melethani says softly. "It is your one time apprentice and padawan, Mace Windu, who will lose his life against the Dark Lord. I could feel your pain, my friend, as clearly as I would had it happened. I knew it could not wait. I had to come see you." Yoda closes his eyes, long pointed ears dipping a bit.

There is a moment of silence before, "Were you able to see who the Dark Lord was?" Mace Windu asks, voice calm, as if he wasn't just told that his life is going to end soon enough and said person in question is the one who is going to kill him.

Melethani turns her unseeing eyes toward Mace. "No. It was just a person shrouded in a pitch black cloak bearing a red lightsaber. But while that is painful and because Yoda is my oldest friend, there is something else that I must address. The Force is fluid, like time, and nothing is set in stone. There is things that are preordained, but what happens during them, or who all is involved is circumstantial."

"What do you mean by that?" Kit Fisto asks, also leaning forward in his seat.

"The vision I received of Master Windu dying by the hands of the Dark Lord appeared to me in four separate scenarios which only happens when it is a crux point in the Force. Something that could entirely change how the course of the future will go. The most prominent, powerful vision was him being killed by the Dark Lord. But there is a mirror image of that, but he is killed by the new apprentice. The third is that he is present when the Dark Lord is killed by another Jedi."

"And the final one?" Master Plo asks, clawed hands tapping against his chair, the only thing belying his minor anxiety.

Melethani smiles, faintly. "The last one is that no one dies that day, but the Dark Lord is reveal yet no one dies that day. At least, no one that I see."

"The Dark Lord as well, that means," Yoda says quietly, finally opening his eyes again.

Melethani nods. "You are right, my friend. Unfortunately, because this is a crux point in the Force, I am sure there is other possible futures, but because of my strong connection to you, and your feelings for your one-time padawan, I am only able to see events with him present. I am sorry I cannot offer you more than that."

Yoda shakes his head slowly, but says nothing right away, seemingly lost in thought. Reaching out into the Force, his ears quirk again and he looks up at Melethani again. "Something else pressured you to move up our meeting, there is." His eyes narrow, dangerously. His unease flittering into the Force like a delicate butterfly, easily devoured by it.

Melethani nods slowly, the air around her shifting, from one of sadness, to one of worry. "Yes, I had a very vague vision on my way here. I do not know who the Dark Lord is, or where exactly they are, but I know they are here, on Coruscant. And they are very close to the Jedi Order, interacting with someone from the Order at any given moment of the day. They are very close to you and there is much that attached them to this place."

"They are looking for an apprentice amongst our Order," Master Depa says, eyes slightly widened, horror written across her face. She looks around at the other Masters, the gems on her forehead and bridge of her nose gleaming in the light filtering in through the window.

The other Masters look worried by her words, as if they were all thinking the same thing, she was just the only one that said it out loud.

"The Jedi Order is the perfect hunting ground for a greedy, Dark Lord of the Sith," Plo Koon says, shoulders slumping a bit in horrible realization.

"When I arrived here on Coruscant and I felt that, I knew that I had to come and see you right away. What I can say is that right now, the Dark Lord does not have a new apprentice. They are still on the hunt. I do not know who they have their sights on, if anyone, but I know that the Crux in the Force is the moment the apprentice make's their choice, whether it is to join the Dark Side, or stay in the Light," Melethani says gravely.

"But how do we locate a single Jedi out of thousands, that could be the target of the Dark Lord?" Depa asks.

"That," Yoda says slowly, narrowing his eyes further, "is the hard part."

* * *

The Twilight hums as it makes it's way back toward Coruscant. Young Anakin Skywalker, leans back into the plush pilot seat, watching as the stars fly by around him, as he listens to the quiet sounds of his Master sleeping in the co-pilot seat next to him. It's unusual for Obi-Wan to sleep on the Twilight, always hypocritical of Anakin's piloting, but this last mission was a doozy. If he could sleep, like Obi-Wan was, or like Ahsoka was curled up in a small compartment seat that comes down from the wall, hunched over, he would.

Glancing back at his young Padawan, Anakin is a bit envious of her being ale to fall sleep almost anywhere and in any position. His neck would chink horribly if he slept like that for the last few hours, like she had been.

Anakin rolls his shoulders a bit, hoping that they would get to Coruscant soon that he can fall into his own bed and sleep for the rest of their five day reprieve. His muscles on his arms, legs, back and neck hurt horribly. Part from being stuck in this cramped ship and in this chair for the last few hours after a mission that nearly kicked his ass, and Obi-Wan's _and_ Ahsoka's.

R2-D2 beeps behind him.

"Quiet, R2," Anakin says softly to not wake their sleeping companions, looking over his shoulder at the small blue, silver, black and white droid. "What is it?"

R2-D2 lets out a series of beeps, clicks and miscellaneous noises, but thankfully quieter.

Anakin's eyebrows pull together for a moment, considering the small droid, before looking over at his Master, reaching over and putting a hand on his shoulder, giving it a little shake. Even though the action is gentle, Obi-Wan, still wound up from the mission, jerks awake and looks around with wild bleu eyes before they settle on Anakin, who is smiling apologetically toward the older man.

"Sorry, Master, I didn't mean for you to wake up so violently," Anakin says, sounding genuinely apologetic.

Obi-Wan runs his hand up and down his face a few times, straightening up in his seat. "No, no, it's alright. What happened? Is something wrong?"

Anakin shakes his head a bit slowly. "I'm not sure, Master." He looks over his shoulder again to see that Ahsoka hasn't moved an inch since the last time he looked over at her. R2-D2 returned to her side and went into power saving mode for the duration of their trip.

Obi-Wan waits patiently for his one-time Padawan to finally speak.

"Master," Anakin's gray eyes turn to Obi-Wan's blue ones, "R2-D2 intercepted an encrypted message from the Council sent out on broadband frequencies."

"And what did they say?" Obi-Wan asks curiously. It's not often that Council does such a thing.

"They ordered that all available Jedi of third tier Knight and above gather for a meeting in three days time in the Archives," Anakin says, dark brown eyebrows pulled together tightly. "Why would they hold a meeting there, rather than the Council room, or, somewhere else? And why bring everyone in at once?"

Obi-Wan frowns deeply, now completely awake. "I do not know, Anakin. I do not know."


End file.
